It is known in the art to drive a field emission display (FED) using a voltage source, which is connected to each conductive column. To control the current at the electron emitting elements, a ballast layer is provided between the electron emitting elements and the conductive columns. However, including a ballast layer results in additional process steps in the fabrication of the FED. The ballast layer also may not solve the problem of poor emission characteristics at low voltages. The emission characteristics at low voltages are adversely affected by the capacitance of the device.
Prior art methods of driving a FED also include using analog-to-digital converters and pulse width modulation circuitry. These circuits add to driver complexity and power requirements.
Accordingly, there exists a need for an improved method for driving a field emission display and an improved field emission display, which overcome at least these shortcomings.